Described as "lightly edited" by TIME, the transcript from President Joe Biden's exclusive foreign policy-focused interview with the magazine is still a mess of confused statements, mistaken assertions, and flat-out falsehoods — according to a fact-check published concurrently by TIME. What the outlet published again confirms why Biden and the White House insist that the tapes from his classified documents interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur are never available to the public. It should also scare his campaign team ahead of Biden's debates with former President Donald Trump.
"For example, the idea that if when Putin decided to go into Russia," Biden said at one point before correcting himself. "I mean, he's gonna go from Russia into Ukraine—the reason why I cleared the intelligence so we can release the information we knew that he was going to attack, was to let the world know we were still in charge." Biden conveniently omitted — and TIME did not raise — the Biden administration's intelligence sharing with the Chinese Communist Party in a failed attempt to have Beijing talk Putin out of invading.
Biden repeatedly mixed up Russia with Ukraine throughout his comments on the subject. He also mixed up Iraq and Iran at points, including his refutation of "the idea that you had nuclear arsenals in Iran, that were being, I mean, in Iraq..." At another point, Biden confused Taiwan with South Korea. Biden also said that America has "the strongest alliance in all of America," before correcting his claim to "all of history."
The interview also saw Biden trail off a number of times, ending an assertion about being "on a slippery slope for war if we don't do something about Ukraine" with "It’s just not gonna…anyway…," according to TIME's transcript.
When asked about Israel's prosecution of the war started by Hamas on October 7, Biden said "I'm not going to respond to that because I'm about to make a…anyway." He's about to make a anyway, folks.
Even TIME struggled to determine what the president said, having to insert admissions of transcription defeat at points such as this in the interview: "Hamas could say (unintelligible) and done period," and again later: "You know, I don't have any (unintelligible)..."
Moving over to Southeast Asia, Biden tackled an explanation of the U.S. position on Taiwan given the CCP's escalating harassment and threats. The president said it's a "policy of, that, it is we are not seeking independence for Taiwan nor will we in fact, not defend Taiwan if they if, if China unilaterally tries to change the status."
To their credit, TIME did allude to Biden's two previous public statements — once during a press conference in Japan and once in an interview with "60 Minutes" — asserting that the U.S. military would defend Taiwan if attacked by China. Both statements were swiftly walked back by Biden's aides, and his lack of clarity in explaining the policy to TIME for this interview did not add much more clarity to Biden's strategy.
The interview also saw some quick contradictions in Biden's arguments in defense of his policies. Biden agreed "they do," when it was noted to him that most economists say tariffs raise prices, but just a few sentences later denied that his tariffs would raise prices. "No, because here's the deal," Biden insisted. "There's a difference. I made it clear to Putin from the very beginning that—I'm not, we're not engaging in…" the president said, apparently confusing Russia's leader for China's Xi Jinping, according to a necessitated editor's note in TIME's transcript.
When his age was noted — currently 81, 86 by the end of a second term — in relation to his ability to serve as president for another four years, Biden asserted that he "can do it better than anybody you know. You’re looking at me, I can take you too," he added somewhat confrontationally.
All this mess despite one softball question after another being lobbed at Biden, few to which the president could adeptly respond.
TIME also fact-checked — as best it could — Biden's claims, and took issue with a number of his statements that simply don't pass muster with reality.
Biden claimed "Europe has spent more money than the United States" on Ukraine, but TIME points out that the EU has spent $107 billion on aid amid Russia's war compared to the $175 billion in aid from the U.S.
Biden said Japan was spending three percent of its GDP on defense, but the ally only has a plan to spend two percent by 2027 and has historically dedicated one percent or less to defense spending.
The president bragged that he put together "a Quad that never existed before," referring to the US-Japan-Australia-India partnership formed in 2004, according to TIME.
Biden defended his economic policy saying "wage increases have exceeded" the cost of inflation, but even TIME noted that "cumulative inflation has outpaced wage growth for most of the Biden presidency."
On the smaller things, too, such as Biden's statement that there are going to be "a billion people in Africa in the next several years," he's stuck in some alternate reality. As TIME correctly noted, the population of the continent is already an "estimated 1.4 billion."
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